‘The base isn’t interested in Iraq; the base is for Bush’

April 4, 2007

This quote was making the rounds a bit yesterday, but I think it’s an important bit of insight into conservative ideology right now. Tapped’s Garance Franke-Ruta, who’s obviously quite a trooper, stopped by by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.’s book party on Monday, celebrating the launch of Tyrrell’s latest anti-Clinton screed. Garance chatted with Grover Norquist about reports that Republicans are nearly fed up with the war in Iraq and might “pull the plug” in August.

“The base isn’t interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush,” Norquist said. “If Bush said tomorrow, we’re leaving in two months, there would be no revolt.”

At a certain level, most of the reality-based community might think this sounds ludicrous. The entire GOP apparatus and the vast majority of the conservative movement have spent the last several years insisting that withdrawal is not only wrong, it’s literally life-threatening. Anyone who even considers the policy hates America. If Bush were to suddenly reverse course and co-opt the Dems’ message, how can Norquist or anyone else expect the president’s loyal backers to automatically reverse course with him?

The question is premised on a mistaken assumption about the conservative movement. Norquist is almost certainly right; the base takes marching orders surprisingly well.

Indeed, they already have. In 2004, John Kerry said it was time to increase the size of the Armed Forces; Bush disagreed. The GOP base went right along, emphasizing how wrong Kerry was. Last year, when Bush embraced Kerry’s policy, the base had no problem switching gears. “Of course we need to increase the size of the military,” they said.

Bush was against sending more troops, and the base said he was right. Then Bush was for sending more troops, and the base agreed with that, too. Bush said he’d listen to the commanders on the ground in Iraq, and the base cheered. Bush then fired the commanders on the ground who disagreed with him, and the base cheered some more.

Anyone looking for intellectual consistency is likely to be very disappointed.

Digby summarized the big picture nicely.

Atrios flags this nice Grover Norquist quote from Garance Franke-Ruta and, correctly I think, notes that it doesn’t mean the base wants to leave Iraq. It just means they will go along with whatever Bush wants to do. In other words, Bush isn’t being obstinate about Iraq because he’s afraid that his base will desert him. He’s not running, neither is Cheney, and neither one of them appear to particularly care about the fortunes of the Republican party. He’s obstinate about Iraq for purely personal, philosophical reasons that have little to do with politics at this point.

So he is not subject to normal political pressure. As Norquist says, the base will stick with him come hell or high water. (I believe it’s a mistake, however, to think it has anything to do with him personally — the base of the Republican party are authoritarians who will blindly follow their leader no matter who he is, which is why they need to be kept away from the brown shirt section of Macy’s.)

It creates an interesting political dynamic. Congressional Dems have a principled stand, but they’re also considering public opinion and where voters want the nation to go. Bush and Cheney aren’t constrained by anything but their own imaginations. There isn’t a soul in the West Wing who feels compelled to say, “If we don’t make a change, there will be hell to pay.”

The only audience the president needs to keep passively in his corner are congressional Republicans, who could wreak havoc if they completely abandon the president and give up on the fiasco in Iraq.

But it seems unlikely. Like their base, GOP lawmakers are too accustomed to taking orders.

This is why having these two nutcases (Bush and Cheney) in charge for the next 20+ months is so dangerous. They do not feel like they are accountable to anyone and are willing to do anything regardless of the strength of the majority who oppose their actions. They will do what they please, and this could have catastrophic consequences. Impeachment is really the only prudent and conservative choice at this time.

Digby’s other post on Michael Ware is also telling regarding the broader picture that the base isn’t interested in Iraq, only in Bush and his policies.

  • That’s how “four legs good, two legs bad” written on the barn wall becomes “four legs good, two legs better” overnight. Cults of personality are not institutional and are not rational. There was no plan for succession after Hitler. These people who support the monster in the White House are not grounded. They’ve got cool-aid. They don’t need no stinkin’ reason.

  • This reminds me of a scene in the movie Patton that has always bothered me. It was after Patton had slapped the solider and he was in his bedroom talking to his aide about the backlash. The aide, seeing the lows of his boss, tries to cheer up Patton by reading a letter.

    The gist of the letter was: “I don’t know why you did it and I don’t understand why you did it, but I support it 100%.”

    At the time, I could never understand how people could be this dumb. I don’t support anything that I don’t try to get a semblance of understanding or knowledge on. Now, I sympathize with the poor lemmings and sheep that these now people are lumped with.

    “If a nation expect to be ignorant and free…it expect what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson

  • If can’t help but think this shows precisely why Gulliani’s crazy authoritarian bent would be really attractive to a sizable part of the GOP base. They like authority. They want to follow. Where they’re lead doesn’t matter, as long as the person leading them makes the hard decisions for them.

  • It’s reminding me more and more of the favorite parental conversation:

    “But, Mom, George is allowed to do it, why can’t I?”

    “If George jumped off a bridge, would you want to do that, too?”

    Bush is apparently not susceptible to any kind of “peer” pressure – meaning that he does not and will not listen to the people – and that does make him a dangerous person. And there are still enough people willing to follow him over the side of the bridge that he feels validated.

    I’m just so sick of it all – and some days I don;t know who to be angrier with – Bush and his minions for all the harm they have done and the death and destruction they have visited on so many people, or the compliant and brain-dead media, who have facilitated a lot more of this than I would ever have thought possible.

    Maybe the Dems need to start talking to the bridge-jumpers as if they were children – frame it in terms people can understand: “This president has done this, this and this, and the results have been disastrous. If he went on the TV tomorrow and told us all that the only way we could win the war on terror was to jump off a bridge, would you go along with that, too?”

  • Grover is right, but his base isn’t what it used to be. It’s washed over the line of control and is now sliding towards irrelevance.

    Fortunately, as misinformed as they often are, the average American is a lot more independent than the moronic base of the Republican party. And the hot-button issues Republicans used to be able to play like a fiddle don’t work so hot nowadays. Racism, Sexism, and finally homophobism are all losing their juice with the average American, so the Republicans literally are running out of ammo. What do they have left? National Security? Law enforcement?

    Bush flushed those down the toilet pretty good.

    All we need to do is make sure the elections are legit, and it’s just a matter of time before the Republican Authoritarians are marginalized once and for all. Their POS SCOTUS appointments will screw us for a while, and that’s significant, but that’s it.

    I see this era as more hopeful than the recent past, with the blogs forcing traditional journalism to clean up its act, and the netroots rapidly taking over the political process from the cigar chompers.

    It’s a new day when diligent citizens can take down a corrupt AG. I’m hopeful we’re seeing a better future than many imagine, and part of the fun will be watching Grover Norquist get (figuratively) drowned in a bathtub.

  • I’d like a better definition of what Norquist sees as “the base.” If he defines the base as those who will never abandon Bush — out of blind loyalty or because he represents the best chance for realizing their radical agenda come hell or high water — then his statement becomes self-referential.

  • Oh my god yes yes yes. This is the very reason I’m convinced it’s going to be Rudy in 2008. They want a messianic, authoritarian figure (which is such an un-Jesus oxymoron) to stand out front and lead the party wherever he will go. They will follow him so long as he is willing to consistently piss of liberals, and none of the other candidates (except crazy, undeclared, and money-lite Newt) fit that bill. They hitched their wagon to Bush, and now they’re his to direct.

  • Good article and responces. I particularily liked the line about “brown shirts at Macy’s”. That really does sum up the 30%ers.

  • There is something in the nature of fundamentalist religion that brings dictators and their sheeple together. The phenomenon explains both Hitler’s rise and Shrub’s 30% floor of support.

  • Forget “figuratively,” Racerx. I want to hold that insult to Scandinavians everywhere under till the last quiver passes through him.

    The Republican “base” authoritarians can be remarkably stupid in so many ways, with their desire for authority. In that hobby of mine I have mentioned a few times, a lot of these people also participate in it. One of the “fun things” of that hobby is trying to learn what the real colors were that World War 2 airplanes were painted. It’s a topic of never-ending discussion, and many times of heated argument. A lot of really good research has been done over the past 30 years, a lot of asumptions and myths exploded. Well, recently, a leading exponent of “base authoritarianism” posted a long rant at a discussion board about how much trouble it was to have all these people “challenging authority” with their information (i.e., proving his color choices on his latest model to be “wrong”), and declaring it was time to set out some rules that could be relied on about all this. What was heartening were the replies telling him to stick his head back up his ass. What was sad was the even-larger number of replies agreeing with him.

    These people really don’t want to have anything they “know” or “believe” challenged in any way. They do not like questions (since most of the time they have the wrong answers). When you go through the Guest Book of one of the leading sites in that hobby, and look at what they do for a living, most of them have dead-end careers and dead-end lives, and I think that on some level, they know that. They don’t want any questions about anything, because if anything they “know” is wrong, then everything is, and in the end they have to face that their choices have made their lives essentially worthless. So they go for anyone who tells them they’re right and good and they hold onto that like a drowning man to a life buoy, and they attack anyone who is different because they cannot deal with the challenge to what they have created for themselves.

    Just go read Eric Hoffer on the True Believers.

  • In Catholic grade school, we were taught to believe, and not question. Critical thinking was not allowed, at least in religion classes. Many people get past this as they grow up. The 30% base didn’t – they still trust blindly. We need to reach their religious leaders because they tell the base which party to vote for. Grover is correct about the base, they blindly believe whatever their political leaders tell them to believe, even if it is illogical. The problem is the base isn’t enough to win elections with – they need the independents, which they are losing.

  • If this is the case—that Das Base will follow Herr Bush, no matter the consequences—then things may well become inherently more dangerous as the clock runs out on Bush/Cheney. All sorts of scenarios may come into play, and the madness of breaking the conventional military machine in Iraq (while simultaneously building up the assets, manpower, and materiel/ordnance of Blackwater) begins to look like another “Night of the Long Knives” purge.

    Example: Break the “Constitution-defending” Army you’ve got, and replace it with an “Army” of your own ideological design.
    *Blackwell*

    Politicize the civil service by packing it with your minions.
    *OMB, GSA, Interior, Defense, Agriculture, Education….

    Reroute huge sums of money into “programs” designed specifically to enrich your followers, and bankrupt all opposition, by establishing “false-front” operations.
    *Non-faithbased posing as faithbased.

    Establish long-term surveillance of the population.
    *Domestic eavesdropping.

    Gain control of the media.
    *Huge media conglomerates to smother independence and diversity.

    Establish a propoganda machine to sway the masses.
    *FOX, LGF, etc. ….

    Establish control of the police and the courts.
    *Abu, Alito, the USAs, Federal judgeships….

    See how much they’ve managed to create already?

  • As someone who goes to church each week with people who form the core of the “base”, I think jhupps comment about “pissing off liberals” is closest to the truth here.

    It’s not a coincidence that virtually all of the Christian right leaders are from the South, and that the rise of an activist Christian right coincided with the Republican’s “Southern Strategy”. It’s never been as much about their own values as demonizing the other side. 25 (35?) years of propaganda, framing, and hateful talk radio have fanned the civil rights era resentments and the uncertainties of social dislocation into a flaming contempt for “liberals”.

    I hear a certain amount of dissatisfaction with Bush from these folks, but since they could never, ever, vote for the other side, they always come back to their man. The fact that even the mainstream media continues to frame opposition to Bush as “Democrats say…” or “liberals say…” rather than “the facts indicate…” gives these people even more incentive to stand with W and the Republicans.

  • My guess is that there are three factors which hold together the base: 1) Booty. The belief that by being sticking with the leader an individual will see some sort of dividend-or tax break on a dividend. 2) Emotional Connection. The need to feel like on is part of something larger than oneself. 3) Fear of Chaos. The inability to deal with a complex world in which answers are never one hundred percent right or wrong.

    I would speculate that each person within the base is motivated by some admixture of these factors. The least dangerous amongst the base are those primarily motivated by Booty. They can be bought off or will desert if they don’t receive their payments. The most dangerous are those who fear chaos. These people to some degree have pathelogical personalities and may stick with Junior to the end. Remember that origins of the phrase “kool-aid drinker” is in the mass suicides of Jonestown.

  • As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always thought of Bush’s base, like the base of all despot wannabes, as the “lower 40” — the 40% immune to facts and critical thinking, while being obsessed with narrow mindedness and authoritarianism. They’re the ones who constantly harp on law and order, but a close look reveals “order” as their primary concern.

    Frankly, I’m surprised and pleased to see Bush’s base shrink to 30%. I sense that he’s becoming more and more marginalized and ignored by the day. I even think the McCain “Baghdad is safe” foolishness may have a more negative effect on Bush than McCain. Bush has used his power to punch the Middle East “tarbaby” — and people know it.

    I agree with others who have commented on Bush’s base. And I recommend another Eric to add to Tom’s suggestion of Eric Hoffer. In this case, he’s Eric Fromm, who wrote “Escape from Freedom.” The book describes exactly who we’re talking about in regard to the “base.” Here’s an excerpt:

    “There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual . . . . However, if the economic, social and political conditions . . . do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom.” (Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [N.Y.: Rinehart, 1941], pp. 36-7. The point is repeated on pp. 31, 256-7.)

  • Digby nearly has it right but misses the mark when he attributes purely “personal, philosophical reasons” to our most unphilosophical of presidents. His personal reasons are founded in the assuaging of his own ego and the material enrichment of his narrow circle of comrades.

  • Tom Cleaver, Alibubba and rege,

    “Just go read Eric Hoffer on the True Believers.”

    Tom I think that you’re right that this is a fanatical following, but I think that you are wrong about its focus. The ‘base’ is not enamored iwth ideas, it is enamored with George. It is fundamentally a monarchical relationship. Loyalty to GWB.

    rege — you’re reasons that people support Bush are exactly right. Either you are getting payoffs, you believe that George is the second coming, or you think that terrorists are out to get your a**.

    Alibubba — “relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom”

    Beautiful! That describes Bush contract with his base.

    The base treats George like a king or a general. He leads; they follow.

  • The base is a passel of knuckle-dragging, bible-thumping, snaggle-toothed, illiterates with week-old shit under their fingernails and NASCAR on the TeeVee. Who cares what the base thinks, presuming it thinks?

  • It’s been decades since I read The True Believer and it was a significant influence on me. As I recall, one of his points was that the implausibilty of what one believes in is actually an advantage, in that it’s no problem believing what makes sense, so it separates the true believers from those weak minded people who need logic to reast on.

  • Isn’t Bush’s furry pal Grover still a “person of interest” in the whole Abramoff scandal?

    Or has he weaseled his way out of that mess?

  • Perhaps someday the defective genes of the 30%ers can be corrected prior to birth. Seriously. Just make sure they don’t get hold of the technology first.

  • I interpret this as their unbending thirst for power, regardless of whether they contradict themselves. I don’t see it as a cult for Bush per se; he’s just the current vessel through which they can exercise power. If Rudy or McCain became president, the base would transfer that “loyalty” to either of them. No, to me, this is about an absolute determination to stay in power at any cost. After the 2004 election, I think these people expected a Thousand Year Reich, but it has all turned to shit. Now they’re desperate to hang on to power any way they can.

  • Sorry to disappoint you all. But both political parties are in the Zionist pocket.

    Bush and Cheney are outright psychopaths. No, they don’t care about ANYBODY. They will do exactly what they want to do. There is a great book written about the pathocracy. It is called Political Ponerology and there is an article about it that gives a good review and explanation of what it is about. You can find it here:

    http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm

    I recently read an article written by an Iraqi woman. She really lays it on the line. I think that everyone who wants to know what is really happening in Iraq should read it. But it is not for the faint of heart. Like I said, she really says it like it is.

    http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/129687-An+Angry+Arab+Woman+Speaks++-+The+World+Would+Do+Well+to+Listen

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